Poet, mother, lesbian, feminist, African American – Audre Lorde believed in naming the names. She wrote with groundbreaking eloquence about the complexities of identity, and was convinced that silence is the greatest enemy. I first met her in 1984 when Sheba feminist publishers published Zami: A New Spelling of our Name, a brilliant mix of memoir and fiction, and remained friends with her until she died of breast cancer on November 17 1992.

She wrote bravely and passionately about breast cancer in The Cancer Journals. She refused to have prosthesis after her mastectomy, and then, in typical and admirable Audre style, made a fashion out of being asymmetrical – wearing one long earring and one stud! She was a modern-day woman warrior who admired the Dahomey and wrote about them in her most powerful and unified collection of poetry, The Black Unicorn. She taught at Hunter College and lived latterly in the Virgin Islands with her partner Gloria Joseph.

I remember first reading The Black Unicorn in Brixton in 1981 (when Brixton was burning in the riots), before I'd ever met Audre, and then asking Sisterwrite bookshop in Upper Street, Islington, to order everything they could by her. It was like finding a friend. Her work told me I was not alone. She was bold enough to embrace being out, black and gay, at a time when that was difficult. In a period when the feminist movement was very white and middle class, Lorde's was an important, solitary voice. Later, when we became good friends, she taught me that there is strength in embracing seeming contradictions, and not to be afraid of being different.

She was also great fun to be with, had a lively sense of humour, and was generous and funny. I remember she did an interview with the feminist magazine Spare Rib, and they sent her a cheque for £60 pounds saying they'd be happy if she donated it back! She thought that was a cheek! So she sent the cheque to me (I was pregnant at the time with my son, Matthew), and told me to open an account for my baby. Now that's the kind of hero I like.